1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to video entertainment systems and, in particular, concerns a global system that provides viewing parameters to a plurality of different video entertainment devices, such as televisions, Blu-ray players, digital picture frames, and the like and further allows the video entertainment devices to transmit data about the environment in which the device is placed and user preferences to allow for improved viewing parameters to be developed for the individual device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Entertainment systems, including televisions, video monitors and the like are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. High definition video content is now provided on many cable and satellite systems and future entertainment content will have increasingly higher definition resolution. Such high definition resolution substantially improves the quality of the video entertainment.
As video content is becoming increasingly higher resolution, configuring the video entertainment display parameters to achieve a desired level of quality becomes more complicated. The best viewing parameters for particular video content may be dependent on a wide variety of factors. These factors include the environment in which the display device is positioned and the lighting in the room at the time the content is being displayed. Other factors can include user preferences as different users may prefer content to have different display parameters. Further, characteristics of the particular content may also comprise factors that affect the quality of the content being displayed.
Often, the factors that affect the quality of the displayed content are dependent upon what individual viewers prefer. It may be that viewers who have previously seen particular content may have determined a preference for some or all of the display parameters that can be beneficial to subsequent viewers. Alternatively, the creators of the content may also have input on the desired viewing parameters. However, current systems are generally not capable of allowing subsequent viewers to receive beneficial input from previous viewers or content creators.
Further, current systems are generally not capable of dynamically adjusting the display parameters to match the environmental or personal factors for various viewers. Typically, a viewer sets the display parameters, e.g., brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, tint, color temperature, gamma value, etc., when the video display is installed. Given the number of different parameters, viewers will often not adjust the parameters to accommodate different and/or changing viewing environments, e.g., changes in light level in the room, or differences in the content. As such, current video display systems generally fail to dynamically maintain an improved viewing experience for the viewers.
As such, there is a need for a video display system that can more automatically update the viewing parameters of an individual display. To this end, there is a need for a system that is capable of downloading preferred viewing parameters to one or more individual video displays so that the video displays can adjust their display parameters to provide a better display characteristic. Further, there is a need for a system that can dynamically provide data indicative of the viewing environment or viewer preferences so that the system can provide updated parameters with the actual viewing environment for the individual display device in mind.